---    A man’s voice reached Miss Parker, his breath warm-cool-warm-cool against her cheek.  “No,” he murmured, a tremble in his voice like a child’s.  “Please…I can’t…”  He’d fallen asleep on the plane, and Parker couldn’t blame him.  It was a long flight from Montreal to the small airport in Moose Jaw;  even Parker, who had never been completely at ease thousands of feet in the air, had nearly drifted off.    He’d always slept fitfully.  She was just sorry that the last fourteen years of his life hadn’t brought him the release it had brought her.    Her mind taken from her reminiscing, she looked down at her sleeping comrade.  Funny, how the people from your past always caught up with you at the strangest times.  Had she been braver, she would have covered the trembling hand that lay on his armrest with her own.  But she didn’t know how to act, now.  Jarod was a stranger to her.    Which brought her back to why the hell she’d agreed to go to Moose Jaw—actually, some secret destination in Hellhole, Canada, north of here.  She could only be here a couple of days at least.  Parker tried to figure out, again, how he’d convinced her to come along.  She had a Centre headquarters to run.    Actually…she had to unsnap her seatbelt and lift her ass into the air to pull her phone from her suit pants.  In the heat of the moment, she’d almost forgotten to appoint somebody to look after things while she was gone.  An oversight that made her wonder if she belonged in the hospital with Daddy—which was a cruel and terrible joke.  Watching Jarod, a habit she hadn’t been able to break, was a full-time job.  She flipped open the plastic mouthpiece and checked the battery life.  Fifteen minutes, and this cheapo plastic phone was out of a charge.  She’d have to buy a new one in  Moose Jaw.    If they carried the disposable cells in Moose Jaw.  Canada still had the lowest population count in the world, and Canadians generally went in for what worked, not what was hot.  Most of the people those wilderness cabins probably still thought of CB radios as a viable communications device. Sometimes she missed her old phone, which she hadn’t had to toss for years.  But she knew the little secret of these disposables:  they may be only ten bucks each, but they brought in five percent more than their longer-life counterparts of the nineties and the early millennium.  The Centre held the patent. She spoke the name into the receiver.   Ring.  Ring.  Ring.  She waited.  It usually took him a while to answer his phone.  He was busy.    “You’ve reached the Centre Tec—”   “Miss Parker!”  It was seven-fifteen Blue Cove time, and her sweet little hacker was already at work.  His voice was bright.  Broots was one of the few of the old guard who’d chosen to stay on, even when she’d given him the option of fully paid retirement, as she’d given Sydney.  He had been a fiercely loyal friend when they were chasing Jarod together, and it warmed her to hear his voice.  Made her feel like she wasn’t in a parallel universe.  “Will said you left like the sky was about to fall down on us.  How are you!”   “Still breathing.”  They’d greeted each other like that for years.  Sometimes it seemed like a joke.    Others, a relief.  “And the sky isn’t falling.  At the moment.”   “Where are you?”   “Give it up, Broots.”   “Okay, okay.  Air Canada.  Flight 3459, Montreal to Moose Jaw.”   Impressive, she was about to interrupt.  She’d bought the ticket under a moniker, but it was one they both knew.  But he beat her to the punch.   “But there’s nothing in Moose Jaw that would interest the Centre.  There’s another Air Canada flight to Chicago in an hour, and the flight you’re on gets a tank full of gas and goes back east toward Calgary.  If you were going to either of those places, though, you’d tell me, so you know what I think?”  He paused for a minute, and she heard the clicks that meant he was typing into his machine; he had her on speaker phone.  “I think you’re taking the only for-hire plane service in Moose Jaw.  Small.  Private.  And very secret.  Miss Parker—”   “What?”  She tried to sound annoyed at the intrusion, and couldn’t.   “Twenty bucks says you’ll pay in cash.  Another twenty says a certain someone is footing your bills.”    Nosy little…she’d taught him too well.  In the early days, he wouldn’t have dared to check up on her.  Or if he had, he wouldn’t have said anything.  But as head of technology, she’d made it his business to keep an eye on everything.  He didn’t know it, but in her safe she had paper instructions that would ensure that he was made Director if anything happened to her.  She didn’t trust anyone else living more than she trusted Broots except Sydney, and Syd would turn down a directorship.  “You’re good, Broots.  You get a Scooby Snack when I get home.”   “Thank you, MP, ma’am.”  He was in a jovial mood, now wasn’t he?  “Why did you call me, anyway?  Jarod can take care of everything there, can’t he?  I mean, I’m not bad, Miss Parker, but Jarod can kick my butt in the hacking business any day.”   She sighed.  Disappointing.  “You got all that information from Jarod?”   “Of course not.  He just emailed me to say you’d be out for a couple of days, maybe a week…oh.  He didn’t tell you.  Well, I’ve got everything under control here.  I’m letting Keating take your office for now, unless you want me to do it.”  He said the last part quietly, because he would hate her job.  Heaven for Broots was to peck away at his computer all day, and management be damned.  He would do it, if she asked him to, but he’d hold a grudge for days at least.    “Just check up on Keating.  Make sure he doesn’t get too comfy in that director’s chair.”  Keating was twenty-five, a manager from Centre Corporate, where Parker had had her own unorthodox business education.  He was also too arrogant to realize how naďve and foolish he was, and was a die-hard, power-hungry, slash-and-burn Centre executive.  In the rare conversations she’d had with him, he reminded her of Lyle, albeit not as crazy and more reliable.    Broots’ relief was palpable.  “Thanks, Miss Parker.  I will.”   “And occupy that mind of yours with something more interesting than my itinerary.”   “Any examples?”   “Find out what they’re doing with our consoles in Australia.  Exactly what they’re doing.  I don’t want what nearly happened with the phones to even get started over there.”